Make shopping center parking lots part of snow clearing plan

February 23, 2010

I should like to offer one possibly controversial addition to Roy Whitely's "The snow: lessons learned" comments (Readers respond, Feb. 20) about dealing with large snowfalls. It was triggered by another item in The Sun about the towing of cars from shopping center parking lots.

Rather than allowing cars to be towed from these lots, use the principle of eminent domain to seize these lots or portions thereof for the duration of the snow emergency as short-term parking havens for cars that need to be displaced for snow clearing operations, with, of course, adequate compensation to the lot owners. Standards for regulating the influx and duration of storage would need to be developed, but such a procedure might obviate the conflict and illegality of street parking dig-out claims.